Hip-Hop & Health Behavior: Relationships Between the Individual and Community

1. Hip-Hop & Health Behavior:Relationships Between the Individual and Community Raphael Travis, Jr., DrPH, LCSW Texas State University – San Marcos, School of Social Work

2. Hip-Hop & Youth Development Projects

3. 47% Of Homicide Deaths Age 22 or younger High Risk Messages: Violence

4. High Risk Messages: Substance Use Drug-related Incarceration Stat:

5. High Risk Messages: • Misogyny • “The Female Fear” • Sexual victimization, • Verbal and physical harassment, • Sexual exploitation

6. **Very High Risk**

7. Is that it?

8. EMPOWERMENT

9. Empowerment • Any attempt to gain power over decision-making, opportunities, or the meaning ascribed to one’s life. • Attitudes and behaviors that feel empowering to an individual or community may be risky or prosocial, or contain elements of both.

10. Travis & Deepak (2010): Individual & Community Empowerment (ICE) • Risk/Empowerment Framework based in the literature • Goal: Tool for understanding and practice • Use: Prevention or intervention • Value: • building rapport; • general interactions (engagement) with youth; • assessment and goal development; • creates a structure for practice and evaluation.

11. What Do Young People Hear? Content and Impacts

12. Demographics of Participants

13. Empowerment Questions Individual Empowerment • Hip-Hop music helps me make it through bad times • Hip-Hop music helps me think about doing more positive things • Hip-Hop encourages me to be proud of my ethnicity (community empowerment); • Hip-Hop helps me think critically about the world around me (community empowerment). Community Empowerment

14. Risk Questions Individual Risk • “I am more comfortable with the idea of drinking alcohol while listening to Hip-Hop music” • “I feel more okay about committing some crimes after listening to Hip-Hop music” • “I am more comfortable with the idea of selling drugs after listening to Hip-Hop music” • “Treatment of women in Hip-Hop is worse than in movies” • “Violence talked about in Hip-Hop is worse than violence that I see in movies” • “Hip-Hop justifies criminal behavior” Community Risk

15. Table 7. ICE Inventory Subscale Means, Standard Deviations and Alpha Reliabilities Note. The variation in sample size is due to fluctuations in response rates for demographic information.

16. Empirical Results from Measurement and Structural Model for ICE Inventory

18. Key Findings: Empowerment Individual Empowerment • 37% of respondents reported that listening to Hip-Hop music has made it easier to talk about their problems. • Similarly, 39% of respondents reported that listening to Hip-Hop helps them think about doing more positive behaviors. • 30% of respondents stated that Hip-Hop encourages me to be proud of my race/ethnicity. • 33% of respondents felt that Hip-Hop they listen to gives them hope that conditions in their neighborhood can be better • 23% felt Hip-Hop makes them want to do something positive for their neighborhood. Community Empowerment

19. Key Findings: Risk Individual Risk • 22% of respondents reported feeling more violent while listening to Hip-Hop. • 20% reported feeling more comfortable about drinking alcohol while listening to Hip-Hop, while • 16% of respondents reported feeling more comfortable with smoking marijuana. • Comfort with use of ecstasy, cocaine and codeine promethazine ranged from 9% to 13% of respondents. • 40% of respondents felt Hip-Hop justifies criminal behavior. • 40% of respondents felt violence in Hip-Hop is worse than what they see in movies. Community Risk

20. Demographic Differences • Females and college students scored significantly higher for each subscale with the exception of community risk.

21. Table 8.Relationship between demographic variables and scale scores (n=120). *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001 Note. The variation in sample size is due to fluctuations in response rates for demographic information.

22. Table 9. One-Way ANOVAs and Post-Hoc Contrasts for ICE Inventory Scores by Gender and Age (n=126) * Difference from other category is significant at the 0.05 level (Gender = Analysis of Variance; Age = Fisher’s Least Significant Difference test, LSD) Note. The variation in sample size is due to fluctuations in response rates for demographic information.

23. Table 11.Correlations ICE Inventory Subscales, Self-Esteem & Depression Variable

25. ICE: Study Findings • Reliable…. Can inform prevention and intervention • Brief… Can be used over time to capture shifts in attitudes. • Identity and esteem are influential in how people perceive what they listen to.